I recently had a chance to tryout this new MMORTS game from Lockpick Entertainmen, my first ever MMORTS game. While I didn’t get very far yet, I have to say that I was pleasantly suprised with how the game plays.

It’s starts out with you selecting one of 3 races and as any game you’ve ever played they all have their strong and weak points.  Once you pick your race the game starts with you controlling your Dreadlord, which is a huge energy being.  You are then given missions to complete and once you have, you successfully take control of that region.  The game is broken up into PvE and PvP zones, zones are floating islands that are broken down into smaller regions that players fight for control over.  When you start out, you are in the PvE zone and as you move from region to region and complete the missions you take control of the zone and receive a reward/resources for each region you capture.

Like any RTS you not only control your Dreadlord but also other troops that you can train and upgrade.  You have your own towns and cities that provide resources for you.  Since this is a MMORTS, there is a set amount of land to fight over between players and eventually the game comes to an end and resets, allowing everyone to start over.  From what I’ve been told this happens every 2 months.   You might not like losing all your progress, but it gives players who didn’t do very well a new chance every few months.   I’m not sure if anyone has ever played a text MMO, but many also work by rounds which I sorta like.

Once I get more into the game, I’ll come back with a full review, but for now you should check it out at dreamlords.com.  It just launched a few days ago and is completely free to play.

I saw an interesting post at the mmorpg.com forums about why players fight on PvP servers.  On one side is a gamer who believes most people do it for the fun and on the other side is a dev who believes its for the loot or reward.

The problem with the Dev’s argument is that most PvP games today don’t have a looting system.  Most games do have some sort of indirect reward system like Lord of the Rings reputation system.  The more players you kill the more points you get which increases your PvP rank.  As your rank increases you get access to PvP only items, even though most of those items suck by the time you kill enough people to open them up.

Being on the Age of Conan PvP server, currently there is no looting or reward for killing someone, yet PvP fighting is rampant.  I think PvPers play on these servers first and formost for the challenge of fighting real people.  Any reward for killing someone is secondary.  Even PvE games have dueling to allow players to fight against each other even though there is no reward or frankly any reason to do so.  The simple fact of beating someone is enought for many if not most PvPers.

FPS are a perfect example of this.  Even though there is no reward when you frag someone, other than your kill count going up, there’s really no feeling like killing someone over and over.  Good times

As more and more MMORPGs get released year after year there seems to be an influx in the ability to do things outside of the standard PvE content that traditionally accompanied these games, essentially what we considered to be “the grind”. Developers have added PvP, extensive crafting systems, and sometimes even some sort of house builder where you can create and live in your own home. Unfortunately, despite having these features added it still always boils down into the traditional grind. Want to build a house? You need money, go grind for some. Want to craft? You need materials, go grind for some. It continues on in this manner until you are, once again, the top level and you have successfully grinded through the entire game.

Before I continue, allow me to re-assure you, this is not another typical “stop the grind” type of discussion. While I don’t much care for the leveling grind, I think we have both read enough about it to be thoroughly sick of the topic. What I am talking about here is alternatives to the traditional leveling grind. Let’s face it, no matter what major MMO you play, the ultimate goal of the game is to get to the top level, but should that really be all? Probably not.

When Ultima Online first came out the ultimate goal was not to get to the highest level (they didn’t even have levels) but rather to skill up in whatever you desired and master that profession. In the early days of the game (when I used to play) there would be all sorts of players ranging from warriors, to shop keepers, to crafters. The game didn’t give you an ultimate goal and didn’t tell you how to play. This is partly why the game held such high appeal for me. Unfortunately, as the 3-D era of MMOs came about the ability to do anything other than the leveling grind came to an end.

Today’s market has shown no signs of changing this mantra either as both Age of Conan and Warhammer Online are promoting their epic story lines inter mixed with vast PvP battles. Unfortunately for those wanting to do something other than getting to the highest level, let’s say open up a store and sell your wares, you are out of luck. Both of those systems are mere bi-products of the MMORPG as we know it today, if theya re even included at all, and while you may not care about leveling or getting epic “lewtz” there isn’t much in these games for you beyond that.

Everything goes into some sort of beta phase these days whether it’s a website, an MMO, a single player video game, or even a product. Beta has become a natural phase for nearly everything we buy and consume today and despite our favorite MMOs going through a rather lengthy closed and open beta process it appears that even upon the official release we are really just transitioning into yet another beta phase: the paid beta.

Now, as we are entering into the next wave of upcoming MMORPGs it appears that this mantra is holding true even more so than in previous years. Back when World of Warcraft was first released it was arguable to say that you were just paying for a beta. After all, all games need to go through these phases and there are likely to be bugs in any MMORPG that gets released. However, what with MMORPGs getting more and more advanced we are starting to see these “pay to play beta” beta phases get dragged out longer and longer. While the World of Warcraft eventually tied down most major bugs, even they must issue patches every few months to keep the bugs down. It’s an interesting problem that probably doesn’t have a permanent solution.

Of course, games having bugs is nothing new to the video games industry. Don’t believe me? Go back and put in any old NES or Atari 2600 game you can find and you’ll notice that there were tons of graphical and physical bugs that made for surprisingly glitchy game play. Back then, however, these were natural occurrences that you just had to accept and ignore as there was no way to get any sort of update. If fact, the first time we did really start to notice how buggy games were was when the first graphical MMORPGs started appearing on the internet which enabled the ability for devs go back and polish their game even after release in order to appease the player base. Before the standard MMO the whole concept of patching was relatively alien to the industry.

Today we have games, MMO and non-MMOs, that are patched regularly and while some games may eventually be considered to be fully patched and complete without bugs, I’d be willing to bet that we are getting awfully close to that becoming yet another part of history. This of course raises an almost philosophical question: if a game an MMO is constantly being patched and fixed can it ever truly be considered complete? I don’t think so…

In continuing with my recent article on the evolution and revolution of MMOs and their lack of truly bringing anything 2.0-like to the industry, the advent of an MMO hybrid often comes to mind. The genre today has many MMORPGs and a few MMOFPSs, but we really have no MMORPG-FPS games out there, a hybrid of the two types of MMOs. Seeing as how enormously successful single player FPS games are (Halo, Call of Duty 4, etc.) and how the MMORPG market is pretty much dominated by the World of Warcraft, it only seems to make sense that a developer would want to capitalize on the most popular genre and turn it into a massively multiplayer RPG event. Allow me to explain a bit.

Today, at this very moment, if you had a strong desire to play an MMOFPS you’d have a couple options. While they are a bit old and sometimes a little slow, they are definitely there and waiting for you to get involved. I am, of course, talking about Planetside and World War II Online. The problem with these games, however, is that they offer little objectives other than killing your enemy. For example, in Planetside the game has devolved into nothing more than a giant push and pull match against the other two faction between the different worlds. While that can be a lot of fun, after a while the whole experience starts to feel a bit shallow as without any real goals you really start to question the whole point of it all. In a game like World of Warcraft, on the other hand, you had an active world with quests, monsters, damsels in distress, and other such things that truly make the world come alive. Unfortunately, the whole combat system is also a bit of a drag in a game like World of Warcraft where everything boils down to pushing a series of numbered buttons. Both offer something unique, but an overall lack in complete gameplay.

So where does that leave us? Well, unfortunately, not to far from where we started. There has been a couple of games that havfe attempted something similar to this but they have both ended in failure and closure. Face of Mankind attempted to do exactly what I was talking about, but lacked the initial polish and big budget to really make a headway in this arena. No matter how unique your game is, if you don’t start off wih a good base you simply can’t survive in this industry. Likewise, Auto Assault, attempted to breed fast action and RPG elements but again failed to garner a large enough audience to sustain it’s own costs. After all is said and done, we have very little to look forward to in terms of combining these two genres as it seems that even the MMOFPS genre may die a slow death. Maybe the rumoured Call of Duty MMO will make headway? I guess we’ll have to take a wait and see approach. Until then I’ll see you guys in Planetside.

We have an new comic today in honor of Age of Conan. Enjoy

The advent of basing an MMORPG around a popular intellectual property (IP) is nothing new to the genre as with such a competitive market it seems almost foolhardy not to include one into your game, however, recent subscription data seems to suggest otherwise. Pirates of the Caribbean, Matrix, Lord of the Rings, Final Fantasy, Star Wars; all of them have been made into MMORPGs, and yet, all of them have failed to live up to the mantra of the overall series.

Today’s top five MMORPGs (World of Warcraft, RuneScape, Lineage, Lineage 2, Dofus – in that order) are all based on either new IPs or relatively unknown IPs. While it’s easy to look at the World of Warcraft and make the claim that it is based off the Warcraft IP, allow me to remind you that amongst the mainstream society it is still relatively known outside of the MMO. I’d be willing to guess that while many of WoW’s first subscribers were fans of the series, most of them today are not, especially when comparing it to some of the truly mountainous IPs that are now MMORPGs.

The best selling, highest subbed MMORPG based off a true successful IP is Final Fantasy XI, which unto itself is not all that surprising. Just like WoW is based off a video game IP so is Final Fantasy XI, namely the Final Fantasy IP. Could this be why these two games are so successful? Despite having major disparities in their subscriber base (10 million compared to 500 thousand) the two games share a common similarity in that they both come from IPs that are based off of popular video games. If you were to look at other properties such as the Lord of the Rings Online, which currently has around 250 thousand subscribers, you’d notice that while the actual IP for the Lord of the Rings is actually stronger amongst society, the game is doing far worse that either of the previous. Why? Well when you take a popular video game IP and make a new video game out of it you already know that there is a dedicated fanbase for that game. However, when you take Lord of the Rings and make a video game out of it you aren’t guaranteed that fans of the series of books (or movies) will be all that interested in the video game and that is were the disparity lies.

Of course, the same can be said for games such as: Star Wars Galaxy, Pirates of the Caribbean Online, and The Matrix Online (amongst others). While each of these movies has enormous cult followings for their movies, each game has failed to truly live up to expectations. Whether that’s a quality issue or otherwise, however, is up to debate. Regardless, though, one has to admit the sheer difference in the size of these IPs between their perspective markets is vast, where the Star Wars series is easily the most popular movie series of all time, the MMORPG fails to show that same popularity and the same can holds true for near all of the MMO IPs released to date.

As many of you know I was in the AoC beta where I only managed to get to lev 15 or so with my barbarian, but since last Thursday, when I finally managed to get a copy of the game, I’ve been battling it out in Hyborian and currently have a lev 20 Demonologist. So I thought I’d give you guys my thoughts on the game so far.

AoC so far is basically like any MMORPG I’ve ever played except with nudity. Yes, it has a unique combat system, but so far for demonologists it hasn’t come into play. Demonologist are basically mages who can use fire or lightning spells and also get a demon pet that follows them around. While the combat system comes heavily into play of melee characters, it is almost non existent for magic characters. My spells are target or AE spells, which work the same way every other MMORPG does. You might say yes when attacking, but when defending I can move my defenses around to block attacks from certain directions. You would be right, the only problem is Demonologist are extremely weak, we can only use cloth armor and combat is so fast that I can’t even tell what side I’m being hit from, then before I know it I’m dead. This is even more true when battling PvP.

Another grunge I have is my demon pet. I’m not sure if they get any better in the later levels, but right now my demon is as useful as a retarded turtle. They do not pull aggro, so they don’t tank. I’ve tried standing far away and having my demon pet attack first, the mobs just run past my pet and straight to me. Completely worthless, not to mention they do almost no damage. Seriously I’m fighting guys now that have about 600-800 HP and my demon does around 2-11 dmg. What the hell is that? I have just stopped summoning my demon because the 10 seconds it takes to summon them is a waste of my time. Which brings me to my next gripe.

Buffs. So far at level 20 I have 4 friendly buffs and my summon demon spell. All spells except for one, last for 30 mins – 1 hr, the one that doesn’t lasts for 5 mins. Now the problem is that everytime I die, which is a lot, I have to recast all 5 spells which takes about a min total. I’m only level 20, how many buffs am I going to have to recast when I’m lev 80? Am I going to have to sit there for 5 mins evertime I die to rebuff myself? I don’t understand why some of these spells aren’t passive? If it lasts longer then 15 mins it should be passive.

Ok, enough of my whining. What I do like about the game so far is obviously the violence and adult content. It’s good to see a head lopped of every once in a while and talk to a prostitute with sexual content. The graphics are also top notch, but they aren’t mind blowing. As for game play, I’m definitely enjoying the PvP server, however 99% of my time right now is just quest grinding which sucks. I can’t wait for developers to realize that no one likes quest grinding. I’m sure the game will get better in later levels once I get more involved in the PvP battles and player built cities, it just sucks that I’m going to have to play 60-80 hrs worth before the game gets fun.

I’ll give you guys another update once I hit lev 40.

A few weeks ago I stumbled across one of the most delightful MMO browser games. In fact, I was so enamored by it that I actual convinced three of my other friends to play it with me in a world populated by… well at least a few hundred other would-be kings. The main reason why I was so enamored by it, and I am assuming you’ll be able to make the distinction as well, is due to it’s inherent familiarity with long-time famed series: Civilization. Let’s take a closer look at Ikariam, a massively multiplayer online strategic browser game.

Despite its instant familiarities with Civilization, the gameplay is actually quite different, but don’t be too quick to give up hope. Where Ikariam is different than Civilization is also why Ikariam is such a fun game. Some key differences include:

• This game is time based, not turn based.
• You won’t ever get to different eras of technology. You’ll primarily be hanging out with Caesar and crew in this game.
• The entire world is divided up into hundreds of islands with a specific amount of space available on each for newcomers and colonies.

Now that I have dashed away the key differences let’s continue on to the actual review of the game which, like I have stated before, is still quite good.

You’ll start your new-found civilization on a random island, most likely already populated by other players. Depending on where you start off you could start on a relatively young island or an island already teaming with huge civilizations. For example, when I started I was placed on an island where the highest level city was only 5 (out of 24), where as, one of my friends started out on an island where the highest level was level 18. Needless to say, he was in a much heavier situation than I was. Naturally you’ll start your city with nothing but a town hall that is level one and from there you’ll build all your buildings in designated plots of land.

Now before I continue on, I think it’s important to explain briefly the mechanics that make Ikariam work. I mentioned above that the game is time based, not turn based. This means that every building you make (only one at a time per city) will take a certain amount of time and resources to make. So provided you have the amount of wood and ore required to upgrade, let’s say, your town hall it still means you’ll have to wait until it’s actually built. These times depend on the level you are upgrading your building too and range anywhere from 10 minutes to 12 hours and beyond. The same holds true for troops, trading, transporting, and warfare. Everything is time based and, while that may seem like a turn-off, the system works surprisingly well.

Continuing on now that we’ve explained the logistics of the game a bit more, you’ll find near everything in Ikariam that you’d expect from Civilization, only smaller and more suitable for a “play for 15 minutes” type style. Barracks allow you to build troops, academies allow you to invest in research towards one of four fields (seafaring, military, economy, science), hideouts allow you to train thieves, trading ports allow you to build cargo fleets, and shipyards allow you to build military fleets. All the same fun stuff you’d expect from a Civilization-esque game.

In order to recruit troops, research certain things, and build and upgrade buildings, however, you’ll need the resources to back them up and sometimes, those aren’t very easy to come by. In fact, this is probably one of the few annoying things about the game. When you start on your island you’ll have two resources available, wood and one of the other four resources. Each island has a different resource and depending on which you land on you could end up with marble, sulfur, crystal, or grapes. Each has their own uses and you’ll notice that each becomes extremely important in the later parts of the game, especially grapes. Early on, however, the most important resource you’ll need will be marble, and if you have no instant access to that material you had better start asking some of your neighboring islands that do to cut you a deal or else your expansion has ground to a halt. It’s a slow process and an even slower fix as it could take weeks to secure some marble. When all is said and done though, you should be back on your path to civilization greatness.

Of course, what would a good review be without a look at the battle system? Yes, worry not, those troops that you plan on amassing will be put to good use. Ikariam offers two direct ways to utilize your military; pillaging and occupation. They do exactly what they sound like. Should you decide to pillage your neighbor and succeed you’ll get an amount of their resources/gold (depending on how fast your troops can load up your ships). If you decide to actually occupy a city and succeed you’ll get full use of that city until such times as you decide to withdraw. The actual battles are a bit mundane and offer no graphics, but it’s still satisfying knowing that your troops are returning with a bounty of treasure.

So that’s basically it. There is a lot to do in Ikariam and if I really wanted to I could probably explain on and on about all the minute details that make Ikariam so much fun. However, as I am sure this block of text has already fulfilled your review quota for the day, I’ll just tell you to go out there and give the game a try! It’s 100% free and while they do offer a RMT system I haven’t noticed anything that they offer to give any players a noticeable advantage. For those who wish to look me up here is my information:

• Server: Iota
• Username: Dmitry
• Island location: 2, 32

Hope to see you there!

Ikariam.org

The crazy bastards did it! I don’t know why they decided to do what they did but the brilliant minds behind the charmingly free2play MORPG Mythos has decided to tack on another M to that acronym and fully realize it as a true MMORPG. That’s right, as of last week, Flagship Studios released unto their test server their newest incarnation that is headed towards the once fully instanced game, that is a persistent world dubbed the “Overworld”.

For those that have yet to play Mythos or even hear about it, the game is being developed by some of the same people who brought you Diablo 2. As such it plays much like it; point top move, right click to use a skill, left click to attack, massive amounts of loot, etc. Up until last week, the rpesentation of the game was much the same, you and a few friends party up in the town (usually StoneHill) and take off into an instanced zone on your way to whatever quest you were on. It was a simple straight forward method, but it was also one that worked fairly well. Well apparently the developers disagreed.

While not yet available on the actual server, those players whose curiosity needs to be peeked can find that if they head on over to the test server they can experience Mythos ala World of Warcrat style. That is to say, you can go anywhere and do anything with anybody at anytime. For those of you who are fearing that this game will become yet another WoW-clone now that it has lost much of it’s past identity, don’t worry, while the presentation may be completely disheveled the core gameplay is still much the same. Lots of baddies, lots of flashy skills, and lots of loot await you in Mythos just like before. The only difference is now it’s all in one big persistent world. It’s all very exciting stuff!